Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing system and a control method.
Description of the Related Art
Apparatus management services for registering and managing apparatuses such as peripheral apparatuses and printers and providing services have been proposed. Apparatus management services include forms of use in which service providers (apparatus management service providers) manage apparatuses of a plurality of customers (individuals and companies). In such apparatus management services, a data region is secured for each customer, and an apparatus is registered and managed for each customer.
Systems in which servers for apparatus management services are placed in the customer's environments on the Internet have been proposed. In such systems, apparatus management agents serving as client apparatuses in which agent applications are installed are placed in the client network environments or apparatus management agent functions are mounted in apparatuses so that relaying is performed between apparatus management servers and apparatuses. The specification of U.S. Pat. No. 6,529,784 discloses a method for reducing redundant management of resources of a plurality of subscribers by concentrating resources used to manage resources of the subscribers on a single server.
Examples of a form in which an apparatus management service is used include a service contract used to manage an apparatus using charging and an assessment contract used to provide a service for free. In the assessment contract, an agent application is installed in a client apparatus of a potential customer, information of the apparatus is collected for a certain period, the collected information is reported, and conclusion of a contract of the service is made. However, since there are also are potential customers who are customers with which conclusion of the contract may not be able to be made, stopping and deleting the agent application may be forgotten in some cases differently from the service contract using charging. In this case, a neglected agent application keeps communicating uselessly with the apparatus management server.